WASHINGTON — Congress is sending President Obama a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security through the end of the budget year, without overturning the president’s immigration policies. The House on Tuesday voted 257-167 for the measure that Obama is expected to sign. Without action, funding for the department would have expired Friday at midnight.

The crusade to find some scandal — any scandal — to sink 2016 Republican presidential frontrunner Scott Walker officially jumped the shark on Monday when a deeply concerned American suggested that the Wisconsin governor’s spokeswomen are problematically attractive. Isthmus, an alternative weekly newspaper out of Madison, raised the allegation in Tell All, a regular advice column. “Dear Tell All,” troubled reader Kate Mallet wrote, “I can’t help noticing that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker picks beautiful young women to be the spokespeople for his administration and his campaigns.”

Last week, the mayoral election in Chicago produced a shocking result when incumbent Rahm Emanuel—Barack Obama’s former chief of staff—failed to get the 51% of the vote needed to avoid a run-off. Emanuel should be worried, but you know who should really be terrified? Hillary Clinton and her acolytes. This election result is a warning that not everyone is ready for Hillary. First, some context. In Chicago, Da Mare does not go to a runoff. Ever. If you’re in charge of the machine, it does your bidding and its gets you re-elected, period. That’s how Richard M. Daley ended up...

ouse Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday agreed to Democrats' demands to hold a vote on legislation funding the Homeland Security Department through the end of the budget year, without any immigration measures attached. The move is a victory for the Obama administration and sets up a presumably swift resolution to the weeks-long standoff on Capitol Hill. Republicans had tried to use the DHS funding bill as the vehicle to reverse President Obama's controversial immigration executive actions. But Democrats repeatedly blocked the move, insisting they pass the spending bill with no riders attached. "I am as outraged and frustrated as you...

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the King v. Burwell case this week. Petitioners are asking that Obamacare be enforced as it was conceived and written by Democrats in 2010 rather than how it’s been conveniently re-imagined by Democrats in 2015. Whatever the outcome will be, watching the Left panic over the case tells us just how risky a ruling could be for the future of Obamacare. If the SCOTUS does find that the 75-percent subsidy the federal government has been dubiously giving health insurers in the 37 states that rejected Obamacare “marketplaces” are illegal, there is a...

He’s emerged as one of the leading contenders in recent weeks, and now a new Rasmussen poll shows that Scott Walker has the best chance of any of the potential Republican candidates against Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head match-up. After a strong few weeks, including finishing second in the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll over the weekend, the Wisconsin governor is within striking distance of Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee. The survey found that 46 percent of likely voters supported Clinton, while 41 percent backed Walker. Supporters of neither candidate received 8 percent, with the remaining 6 percent undecided....

Two days after the disbandment of the second U.S. backed “moderate” rebel militia in six months, the Syrian Al-Qaeda branch “Jabhat Al-Nusra” (Al-Nusra Front) seized a large cache of TOW (wire-guided anti-tank) missiles inside Regiment 46 Base in southwestern Aleppo after defeating Harakat Hazzm (Movement of Steadfastness) in a short battle. Images of Jabhat Al-Nusra fighters with the U.S. supplied TOW missiles surfaced on Monday morning, as they paraded around the captured Regiment 46 Base, posing for pictures in front of boxes with the U.S.’ insignia. The growing fear of hardline Islamist groups getting ahold of these potent weapons has...

WASHINGTON Â–Sen. Ted Cruz joined with Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel on Monday to condemn Iran and rally support for Israel, on the eve of Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuÂ’s controversial speech to Congress.Cruz mocked complaints that NetanyahuÂ’s appearance Tuesday before a joint session of Congress â€” scheduled without the Israeli government or Speaker John Boehner consulting the White House â€” amounts to a breach of protocol or etiquette.Â“ItÂ’s all nonsense. What matters is what we do right now to ensure that in no circumstances will the nation of Iran be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons capability,Â” Cruz said.Unfortunately, he added, the...

Congressional Republicans haven't had many victories in their lasting conflict with President Obama, but Tuesday brought one. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's somber, provocative speech to Congress checked all the boxes. It called into question the efficacy of any deal the Obama administration might strike with Iran over its nuclear program, it likely renewed momentum for another round of Iranian sanctions on the Hill, it positioned the GOP politically as the party more worried about Israeli security, and, despite the White House's best efforts, made the president appear petty and churlish.

I sincerely wish that GOP candidates who cannot win the presidency would simply not run and save us all the trouble. Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Lindsey Graham, Rick Perry — none of these people is going to be the next president of the United States and each of them could do his country and his party a service by staying out of the race. Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee both stand a slim shadow of a ghost of a chance but I wish they’d drop out, too. Presidential Candidate is not supposed to be a prestigious line on your CV....

Contrary to popular belief, aka news media coverage, opposition to the Common Core education reforms of President Obama is stretching across party lines. “The Democratic Party in the state of Washington just passed a resolution condemning Common Core,” Emmett McGroarty said last Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Bear in mind, this is the same state Democratic party that consistently endorses far-Left candidates such as U. S. Senator Maria Cantwell. McGroarty works with the American Principles Project. Forty-five states originally signed onto Common Core, Sabrina Schaeffer of the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) pointed out. Schaeffer moderated the panel...

For days now we’ve watched Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen from Tennessee make the rounds on cable TV and hear how he was planning to skip Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s big speech to Congress…

Maybe she should stay at the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, where the former secretary of State could continue her life's work of building stronger economies, health care systems, and families. Give paid speeches. Write best-selling books. Spend time with Charlotte, her beloved granddaughter. (RELATED: Clinton's 2016 Gender Play) Because she doesn't seem ready for 2016. Like a blast of wintry air in July, the worst of 1990s-style politics is intruding on what needs to be a new millennium campaign: Transparent, inspirational, innovative, and beyond ethical reproach. Two weeks ago, we learned that the Clinton Foundation accepted contributions from...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Monday night that Prime Minister BinyaminÂ Netanyahu's speech before Congress Tuesday "focuses on the single greatest security threat facing America â€“ the threat of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons." "We're at a moment in history where echoes of the past can be heard," he added. "The nuclear deal being negotiated with Iran, I believe, would be a historic mistake on the same order as Munich."To allow the theocratic extreme mullahs in Iran to have nuclear weapon capability increases dramatically the likelihood that those weapons of great destruction will be used to murder billions," the senator warned.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest confirmed Monday that President Obama is "very interested" in the idea of raising taxes through unilateral executive action. "The president certainly has not indicated any reticence in using his executive authority to try and advance an agenda that benefits middle class Americans," Earnest said in response to a question about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calling on Obama to raise more than $100 billion in taxes through IRS executive action. "Now I don't want to leave you with the impression that there is some imminent announcement, there is not, at least that I know of,"...

The Republican presidential field is united in its opposition to President Obama’s executive amnesty, and also united in a lazy consensus on immigration policy. The range of opinion among prospective GOP candidates is astonishingly narrow, and the proposed measures unsatisfactory. Jeb Bush has been loudly criticized for encouraging legal status, and in some cases even citizenship, for illegal immigrants. But Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal have endorsed the same view, while Ted Cruz and Rand Paul have embraced offering legal status, if not citizenship. Scott Walker has made Bush-like statements as recently as 2013. Additionally, Republican candidates are basically unanimous...

On the threat of a nuclear Iran, Israel's long-serving hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has frequently cited the wisdom of Israel Zangwill, an early 20th-century British Zionist who tried to establish a Jewish homeland in places as diverse as Canada, Australia and Uganda. Mr. Zangwill's motto, as the former commando and diplomat has often been recalled favourably, was "obsta principiis," Latin for "resist beginnings," or as he described it, "oppose bad things when they are small." For Mr. Netanyahu, the first Israeli prime minister born in Israel proper, that meant railing against the Iranian threat back in the early 1990s...

As expected, Speaker John Boehner has caved and now will support President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty. On Tuesday, Boehner plans to bring to the floor of the House of Representatives a bill that funds Obama’s amnesty in its entirety for the rest of the fiscal year.

Texas senator joins Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel in drawing parallels between talks with Tehran and rise of Nazi Germany Republican Senator Ted Cruz on Monday slammed negotiators with Iran for â€śfundamentallyâ€ť lacking understanding of their Iranian counterparts and warned that the Obama administration was leading the wayÂ to a nuclear armed Iran. Cruz joined Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel on a forumÂ in a Senate hearing room for a debateÂ chaired by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and titled â€śThe Meaning of Never Again: Guarding Against a Nuclear Iran.â€ťÂ“Those who are leading this negotiation fundamentally donâ€™t understand who it is they...

Updated 9:54 a.m. | Speaker John A. Boehner told his restive flock Tuesday that he will allow a vote on a clean Homeland Security spending bill later today, citing concerns about terrorism and pinning blame on the Senate for failing to pass limits on President Barack Obama’s immigration actions. The Ohio Republican told his members the Senate’s DHS bill would be brought up for a vote after it arrives back in the House later today, according to a source in the room. That effectively leaves it up to the courts to rein in Obama — or not. “I am as...

Ben Carson, a retired surgeon popular with Tea Party conservatives, has formally created an exploratory committee to run for president, according to his campaign chief executive, Terry Giles, the Wall Street Journal reported. With the exploratory committee, Carson can raise money that he can transfer to his campaign once it begins, the Journal said. He has made a number of hires lately, including a national finance director and aides in several early voting states, Giles said, adding that the campaign would soon announce more "major players," who will join Carson's team, the newspaper said. Carson, a former neurosurgeon at Maryland-based...

Sen. Kirk: Chicago Could End Up Like Detroit If Mayor Emanuel Not Re-Elected March 2, 2015 Craig Dellimore (CBS) — Republican U.S. Senator Mark Kirk has given his tacit endorsement of Mayor Rahm Emanuel for re-election, reports WBBM Political Editor Craig Dellimore. He refused to call it an endorsement, but Senator Mark Kirk made clear he feels Chicago would risk dire financial straits like Detroit has seen if Mayor Emanuel is not re-elected.

Forget the Democratic and Republican primaries: The two biggest names in the 2016 presidential race are competing directly against each other in an elite forum, the halls of Goldman Sachs. Jeb Bush will be back in New York raising money next week with his sights set on Goldman, the wealthiest and most successful bank in Wall Street history. He has a pair of events scheduled for next Wednesday with current and former Goldman executives, sources familiar with Bush’s plans said.

Political pundits are abuzz about revelations that foreign countries made substantial contributions to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary was secretary of state, ------including one by Algeria that violated a 2008 ethics memorandum some legal experts now say was little more than window-dressing. Algerian officials gave the Clinton Foundation $500,000 in 2013 to aid relief efforts following the massive earthquake that devastated Haiti. Foundation officials conceded to the Washington Post earlier this week that the Algerian contribution should have been reviewed to see if it violated the memo but wasn't due to the rush to get help to Haiti. The other...

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have wondered out loud whether Michael Schmidt, the New York Times reporter who broke the story about Hillary using private email during her time as Secretary of State, might be fearing "retribution" from Hillary's camp. When Joe and Mika interviewed New York Times Schmidt on today's Morning Joe, Scarborough had to work to get Schmidt to say something that was in his own article: that while Colin Powell also used private email as Secretary of State, there were no rules prohibiting that at the time. Later, Joe and Mika later remarked that they were "taken...

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani may have a point. But he badly overstated the case when he questions President Barack Obama's love of America. Still, the outspoken one-time GOP presidential hopeful struck a nerve among Obama supporting progressives in the media, whose job in modern America is to spring to Obama's defense no matter what.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Sunday that he’s intent on following “regular order” in Congress to consider a Department of Homeland Security spending bill, which many Republicans are hoping can be used to defund President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration. But that “regular order” could end making it easy to pass the DHS bill without any immigration language at all, handing Democrats a big win. With some drama late last week, the House passed a one-week DHS spending bill and asked the Senate to go to a “conference” to sort out differences in the House and Senate DHS...

Listen To Glenn Beck Now, on The Blaze Radio Network on www.iheart.com . Truth Lives Here Known for his quick wit, candid opinions and engaging personality, Glenn Beck has attracted millions of viewers and listeners throughout the United States with The Glenn Beck Program. His radio show, The Glenn Beck Program, is heard on over 400 stations and is syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks. It is the third highest-rated national radio talk show among adults ages 25 to 54. Looking for audio and video from the radio program? If you’re a TheBlaze TV Subscriber you can access all your...

As leader of the Western world, the President of the United States automatically receives the title, ‘world’s moral leader against terrorism’. No one else in the West has the bully pulpit to be that leader. No one else has the military might to give that leadership a lethal punch. Our world today reveals a universal truth for nation-states: might makes right. It’s military power that creates real-life morality, not speeches. Without the willingness to kill, any Western attempt to promote life, freedom or humanitarian values will be rendered meaningless by the sword of the enemy. If that sounds paradoxical, it...

Those who do not confront evil resent those who do. There is no question about whether President Obama — along with Secretary of State John Kerry and the editorial pages of many newspapers — has a particular dislike of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But there is another question: Why? And the answer is due to an important rule of life that too few people are aware of: Those who do not confront evil resent those who do. Take the case at hand. The prime minister of Israel is at the forefront of the greatest battle against evil in our...

While all eyes will be on Bibigate this week, there's another drama brewing in Washington that's even more consequential. This is a new bill introduced on Friday that would give the U.S. Congress the power to approve or kill any nuclear deal President Obama makes with Iran. The bill is called the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, and it was introduced by a bipartisan group: Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) and ranking member Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey), as well as Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Tim Kaine (D-Virginia). I love the bill for two reasons....

Thousands of emails Hillary Clinton generated as secretary of state were not archived as official government records because she used a private email account to conduct State Department business, the State Dept acknowledged Monday. Clinton’s use of the personal account for work-related emails and the State Department’s effort to gain control over the information were first reported by The New York Times. Clinton did not use a State Department email account, the paper reported. “Last year, the Department sent a letter to representatives of former secretaries of state requesting they submit any records in their possession for proper preservation. In...

Former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani's recent comments about President Obama not loving American has set off a week of apoplectic press pronouncements and "gotcha" interviews with GOP candidates pelted with the questions: "Does President Obama love America?" and "Do you think President Obama is a Christian?" These are manifestly silly exercises, largely because the press has no interest in determining the actual answers. (If they did, they would have doggedly pursued those answers years ago.) Instead of asking what the president's religion is, however, one might do better to ask whether the president understands religion. Because a great deal depends...

Congress has every right, and even an obligation, to hear the Israeli leader speak about the Iranian threat. The Wall Street Journal Feb. 23, 2015 6:33 p.m. ET http://www.wsj.com/articles/alan-m-dershowitz-the-appalling-talk-of-boycotting-netanyahu-1424734380 As a liberal Democrat who twice campaigned for President Barack Obama , I am appalled that some Democratic members of Congress are planning to boycott the speech of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 3 to a joint session of Congress. At bottom, this controversy is not mainly about protocol and politics—it is about the constitutional system of checks and balances and the separation of powers. Under the Constitution, the...

NY Times report says during Hillary's tenure at the State Dept, she never used the official email account, relying on a private email account to conduct state business..... only official accounts are automatically retained under the Federal Records Act, meaning that none of Clinton's private emails were preserved. In March 2013, her adviser had his email hacked.... Gawker reported Sidney Blumenthal was communicating with an account that appeared to belong to Clinton at the "clintonemail.com" domain. The content of some of those emails was published by RT.com. Examining the registry information (below) for "clintonemail.com" reveals that the domain was first...

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest confirmed Monday that President Obama is "very interested" in the idea of raising taxes through unitlateral executive action. "The president certainly has not indicated any reticence in using his executive authority to try and advance an agenda that benefits middle class Americans," Earnest said in response to a question about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calling on Obama to raise more than $100 billion in taxes through IRS executive action. "Now I don't want to leave you with the impression that there is some imminent announcement, there is not, at least that I know of,"...

Walker demonizes unions, the poor and voters of color in order to appeal to whites. Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s drive for an anti-labor “right to work” law covering private-sector workers is deeply rooted in the racism of the Deep South’s former slaveholding states. They are yet more evidence that he is following a template known as the Republican Party’s “Southern strategy,” which plays to white voters’ racial resentment, even though his budding presidential campaign is based in snow-encrusted Wisconsin. This emerging strategy is reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s original “Southern strategy” of 1968 and Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign kickoff event....

Sean Hannity Unveils Plan To Unite Tea Party And Establishment Republicans Ahead Of 2016 B. Christopher Agee, February 27, 2015 Sean Hannity, Fox News CPAC 2015 ( 24:27 ) Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity rallied an enthusiastic audience at CPAC Friday by presenting what he believes is the Republican Party’s best path to victory in the next presidential election. “America,” he said, “we will fundamentally transform it to the great country it was. Our long nightmare of lawlessness and Obamacare and weakness as it relates to foreign policy … is coming to an end.” Though he acknowledged he...

A task force appointed by President Barack Obama to reform policing in the U.S. is recommending that the Department of Justice scrap an FBI database that gathers and maintains information on certain “immigration violators.” The recommendation, handed down by the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing in an interim report on Monday, pertains to FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database. NCIC is used by local law enforcement officers during traffic stops and other encounters with the public. The database, developed in 1967, allows officers to find out if the individuals are wanted for crimes in other jurisdictions. An...

Currently, 61 members of Congress have confirmed they will not attend the speech. Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) California Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) — “I am disappointed Speaker Boehner chose to irresponsibly interject politics into what has long been a strong and bipartisan relationship between the United States and Israel. As President Obama has noted, it is inappropriate for a Head of State to address Congress just two weeks ahead of their election. I agree that Congress should not be used as a prop in Israeli election campaigns,...

VOTE AGAINST HIGHER TAXES MARCH 10TH 2015 (Bryant, Arkansas) The millage tax increase scheduled on March 10th of 4.9 Mills would make the average overall millage rate in Bryant from 37.2 to 42.1 mills. Arkansas already has a 6.5% sales tax, 40.2 cents a gallon on gas, a capital gains tax, & a progressive income tax. Federal taxes, State taxes, local taxes, fees, fines, inflation, and other expenses have increased while pay and benefits have decreased. Newly hired Superintendent Tom Kimbrell, who makes $200,000.00, is guilt-tripping the Bryant taxpayer, who’s average salary is $31,856.00 into paying yet another tax! The...

An outside group aligned with House GOP leadership will spend $400,000 this week to urge dozens of conservative House Republicans to vote for Department of Homeland Security funding — a new and more aggressive phase in the legislative battle among Republicans that’s consuming Capitol Hill. The nonprofit American Action Network is airing an ad in three states — Kansas, Oklahoma and Ohio — urging Reps. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to back funding for the anti-terrorism agency. The 30-second spot will run at least 50 times in each district — on broadcast, in prime slots...

OAKLAND (KPIX 5) — The minimum wage in Oakland is about to become the highest in the Bay Area. Right now it’s $9/hour, but not for long. Thanks to voter-approved Measure FF, it will rise to $12.25/hour on Monday. But as this city’s minimum wage goes up, so go food prices. Most restaurants have said they’ll have to raise prices and cut worker hours. --SNIP-- But while Higginbotham can’t wait for the $12.25 hourly wage, small business owners like Sam Hori at 475 Café worry they may not survive. “It’s scary, because if things go down, we cannot to be...

Say "1964." and those of us old enough might remember the appearance on Ed Sullivan's show of some little British group called the Beatles. But Chris Matthews recalls something else: the decision of the Republican party to nominate Mr. Conservative, Barry Goldwater, and his ensuing wipeout by LBJ. On his MSNBC show tonight, Matthews suggested that Republicans are in a similarly reckless mood, and might well nominate a true conservative, electoral consequences be damned. And, oh yeah, Chris contended that the GOP would do so out of racist motives. View the video here.

WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record. Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act.

“Is Liberalism Exhausted?” Jonah Goldberg wondered recently at National Review, surveying a movement that seems to have run out of intellectual gas after six years of dragging Barack Obama uphill. [...] All true, but to quote Obama’s presumptive successor on the Democrat ticket in 2016: “What difference, at this point, does it make?”It’s true that liberalism doesn't have anything exciting and new to offer – even its plans for the Internet are drawn from 1930s telephone legislation – but the only thing the Left is really tired of is selling its ideas to skeptics. It’s largely given up on that effort in exchange for...

<p>SACRAMENTO (AP) — A trade group has turned in enough signatures to qualify a referendum on California’s plastic bag ban law, suspending implementation of the nation’s first statewide ban until voters weigh in on the November 2016 ballot, state elections officials said Tuesday.</p>

The Obama Democrats have an audacious scheme for winning future elections. They just plan to import 5 million non-citizens and credential them as voters who will, in gratitude, vote Democratic. The way this devious formula works is stunningly simple. Just get the new Republican Congress (under Speaker John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell) to pass a full-funding bill for Homeland Security without any exception for the funding of Obama's illegal executive amnesty, which will allow Obama to give work permits, Social Security numbers and driver's licenses to 5 million illegal aliens.